22 October 2020
Masterton District Council is considering different options for progressing its Town Centre Revamp project following the recent tender process for construction of the lower Queen Street section.
The period for contractors to submit tenders on the work closed on 15 October and, unfortunately, no tenders were submitted.
Chief Executive Kath Ross said the construction sector was extremely busy which resulted in contractors not submitting a tender for the work.
“This is great news for the economy, and I’m delighted that local and national construction firms seem to be doing so well; the huge range of construction projects all over the country are keeping people in jobs,” Kath said.
“It is disappointing for us in Masterton, but it was not a complete surprise; the market for contractors has been tight for a while and with the additional work coming on stream it was almost expected that we may need to look at different ways to get the work completed.”
The council is now exploring different options for packaging up the construction work that may fit better with the capacity and resourcing in the construction sector.
“We’re also going to be speaking with construction companies to get a better understanding of when they may have availability to be part of this exciting project – it may be that we need to reassess our timeframes for having this first segment of the work done.
“Our options also include looking at whether we can bundle other construction work into a contract, or segmenting different parts of it out so they can be done by different companies,” Kath said.
“Our priority is always on getting value for money for Masterton ratepayers – that always needs to be front of mind when considering projects like these.”
The council will be working through the different options over the next few weeks and expects to be able to provide an update on progress in November.
ENDS